The Subtle Approach
by alienheartattack
Summary: Levi is really, really not good at having a crush. This fic takes place about 5 years after the current storyline. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Mikasa generally enjoys being Levi's lieutenant and right hand, but the paperwork is intolerable. After each mission the two of them spend hours working side by side, heads down, listening to the nib-scratch of their writing and the occasional "Oi!" from Levi when her heavy lids slip closed.

Tonight, instead, he takes a piece of wadded-up scrap paper and throws it at her.

She jolts awake, halfheartedly swiping at the air long after the paper bounces off of her cheek and falls to the floor. "The hell?" Her voice is thick and slow with sleep.

"Wake up," he snaps. "You're not done."

Mikasa yawns, lifting her arms in the air and arching her back as she stretches in her rickety wooden chair. Levi averts his eyes. "I'm up," she insists, though the slow cadence of her words betrays her. She pulls the chair closer to the table in the mess hall, tonight's improvised office, and continues filling out the small stack of papers before her.

Levi turns back to his paperwork, trying to come up with a way to word his report in a way that conveys his contempt for the members of the Military Police caught blatantly stealing food from civilian stores without calling them stupid fucking assholes. He immerses himself in his work, silently congratulating himself when he comes up with what he finds to be an impressively witty but still professional turn of phrase, when he hears a soft snore to his left.

Levi finds himself smiling as he watches Mikasa's head loll forward, a sheet of black hair shining dully in the candlelight, obscuring her face. He pulls out another piece of paper, scribbles something on it in his small cramped handwriting, crushes it into a ball between his hands, and lobs it at her. It hits her squarely on the crown of her head, then falls to the table in front of her, next to her right hand.

When Mikasa opens her eyes and looks at him, he crosses his arms over his chest and furrows his brow. "Shit. How long was I out?" she asks.

Levi stares back at her coolly, his mouth drawn into an exasperated line. "Too long."

"Permission to go to bed, Captain?" she asks, blinking sleepily at him. "I really don't think I can stay awake any longer." Her last few words become indistinct as a deep yawn overtakes her. "Sorry."

"Permission granted," he replies after a moment, his voice soft and weary. She thinks it is because he is disappointed in her, hoped she would be able to stay awake half the night like he does. She may be his protege, but she refuses to become accustomed to his grueling hours. It is her last rebellion against him (as well as the last vestige of her vanity; she does not like the way she looks with heavy bags beneath her eyes).

Levi looks at the crumpled paper on the table, then at her face. Mikasa is not sure what he is trying to say to her and is too sleepy to try to discern it, so she simply bids him goodnight and trudges off to the room she shares with Sasha, her eyes half-closed as she stumbles upstairs.

After she leaves the room, Levi picks up the wadded papers from the table and floor, setting the pair of them before him. He unfolds the one that landed on the table, smoothing it out. Perhaps it was a bad idea to throw it at her while she was falling asleep, but in his heart of hearts he hoped that her soldier's instinct would kick in and she would be curious as to what Levi launched at her.

Then again, he is not sure what he would have done if Mikasa had discovered a note that reads, "You're really pretty when you sleep, even though you snore."


	2. Chapter 2

Before going to bed on December 30th, Mikasa hears the unmistakeable crinkle of paper as she starts to unwind her scarf from her neck. Her suspicions are soon confirmed when she unwraps a layer of wool from her throat and a tightly folded square of paper falls into her lap. With her scarf resting across her shoulders, she unfolds the paper to reveal a message scrawled in nearly unintelligible smudged pencil:

_I like you so much, more than I've ever liked anyone._

Mikasa stares at the missive for a few minutes, her dark eyes wide with alarm, her mind racing at the possibility that someone crept in her room and placed the note in her scarf or, worse still, somehow found a way to slip it in its crimson folds while she was wearing it. The handwriting looks familiar, but it could be anybody's: the straight lines and round curves are standard military penmanship, in which they've all been extensively drilled. At this level of blurriness, even Eren's reformed chicken-scratch could resemble her own neat script. She folds the note up and places it in the breast pocket of her jacket, then goes to sleep with her scarf beneath her pillow.

At breakfast on December 31st, Mikasa quietly interrogates Sasha about whether she saw anyone go near her scarf, or if anyone asked Sasha to pass a message to her. "I'll give you my roll if you tell me who left this note," she offers.

Sasha scoffs. "I'm not a dog, Mikasa. You can't just throw food at me in exchange for getting something you want."

"I have a packet of those toffees you like. I'll tell you where I've hidden it."

This, to Sasha, is a prize greater than gold: there have been whispers that Mikasa has secretly been hoarding candy around headquarters, but no one has ever confirmed the existence of her caches. The toffees would be nice, but the prize of gossip that she can relay to the squad is much sweeter than any candy. Still, she has nothing to give her comrade, so her face falls even as her mouth reluctantly waters at the thought of the way the bits of burnt sugar crunch between her teeth. "I don't know anything about a note, Mikasa. I would tell you if I did. I really don't know. I didn't see anyone come in the room and no one asked me to pass you anything."

Mikasa sighs, then nods. "I believe you, Sasha."

Sasha feels something poking at her knee; she looks down to see Mikasa pressing the cardboard packet of toffees against the thick twill of her pants. She smiles, then takes the packet and secrets it in the inside pocket of her jacket within a fraction of a second. "My guess would be Jean," she says after composing herself. She scoops up a spoonful of gruel, then lets it drip back in to her bowl. "He's always had a thing for you."

At lunch, Mikasa and Eren are eating together when Armin takes a seat next to her and says, "Jean wants to know why you've been glaring at him all day. He sounds kind of upset."

Mikasa sighs. "Someone left me a note, like a secret admirer note, sometime yesterday. I was trying to figure out who it was. Sasha said it might be Jean."

"I don't think it was him. The two of us were stuck fixing 3DMGs for most of yesterday," Armin replies.

Eren snorts, spears a sliver of meat with his fork. "When would he be able to get to your scarf, anyway?" Mikasa shrugs. "It can't be Jean. And it's not me and it's not Armin, so who else could it be? Connie?"

"It's not Connie." Mikasa shakes her head. "I don't have any proof, but I'm fairly certain Connie didn't write the note."

Armin sighs, then falls silent for a few moments. "Have you considered that Captain Levi could be the culprit?"

Mikasa does not answer; she is drowned out by Eren's raucous laughter.

Erwin tells the soldiers at dinner that they are free to celebrate the new year, and will not need to report until lunch the next day. He is greeted with applause, then whoops when he announces that he has been able to procure a little bit of sparkling wine for each squad. Levi refuses the proffered bottle for his squad, saying they need to stay sharp, but tells Jean and Sasha privately that he has found their poorly-hidden fireworks stash and that they may, with strict supervision, set up a show for the entire Survey Corps at midnight.

At 11:55, everything is ready to go and the squad is assembled behind Jean and Sasha — all save for Mikasa, who has taken her place on the rooftop of a nearby building, claiming it is a better vantage point than right behind the fireworks' launchpad.

"That's a good idea," Levi says perhaps a bit too loudly after Historia informs him where Mikasa has gone. "I think I'll join her." After he leaves, Armin nudges Eren and gestures toward the captain's retreating form with a toss of his blond hair. Eren rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

"Mind if I join you?" the captain asks as he lifts himself onto the roof from a nearby ladder.

Mikasa hesitates for a moment. "If you want," she says, patting the space next to her with one hand.

"All right," he replies, sitting next to her. Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees her eyes widen for a split second, as though she did not expect him to accept her invitation. No matter; neither of them have any time to react as they hear the echo of voices counting down the last twenty seconds of the year. After the countdown ends and the assembled masses shout, "Happy New Year!" there are cheers from the soldiers on the ground, then the whistle and pop of fireworks as Jean and Sasha start lighting fuses.

"My parents told me it's a tradition to kiss at the new year. It's good luck," Mikasa shouts over the din.

Levi tries to keep his face impassive, fighting the urge to widen his eyes and open his mouth. "Oh," he answers, not quite meeting her gaze.

"I'm not superstitious," she blurts.

"That's a relief." And it is. Even the quick press of her lips to his would be enough to undo him. He does not think he'd be able to stop himself from tangling his fingers in her scarf, disgusting though it is, and pulling her close to him. He tilts his head up to look at the fireworks, trails of orange and gold exploding and blooming into fiery crimson bursts, crackling champagne-colored sparks, dandelion puffs in purples and greens.

Even as Levi has his eyes trained on the sky, he cannot help but notice that her hand is so close to his, mere inches away. If he adjusted his posture, put his hand closer to hers, he could stretch his hand out and touch her. From the way she keeps glancing at him and looking away, the corners of her mouth puckered in a grin she is mostly suppressing, he does not think she would mind. And so he arches his back and creeps his hand slowly, slowly towards hers…

"Captain Levi!" Eren says as his his boots hit the roof, making a noise somehow audible over the boom of the fireworks. Levi tries not to visibly stiffen as he draws his hand away from its advance toward Mikasa's, placing it next to his hip. "Happy New Year!"

"Happy New Year," Levi replies robotically, then turns back to the fireworks, trying to distract the bubbling disappointment in his gut as Eren sits down next to him to watch the show and, within a minute, is joined by Historia, Connie, and Armin.

"Did you wish Mikasa a happy new year?" Eren leans over and asks the Captain.

Levi takes a deep breath, then nods at the young man. "Happy New Year," he says to Mikasa, turning to look at her profile for a moment before he speaks, watching her face light up in blues, greens, pinks as Sasha and Jean shoot off more fireworks. She is so terribly close, and yet so far away — especially with Eren sitting next to him, watching him like a seemingly oblivious hawk. (On the other hand, he cannot imagine Eren will be happy if or when he finds out how Levi feels about Mikasa, the remainder of his hero worship be damned.)

Mikasa seems to notice his eyes on her so she turns to him and gives him a smile that to him seems brighter than the fireworks, brighter than the sun even. Her reply to him is only four words — "Happy New Year, Captain" — but as she speaks there is something in her tone that makes him think that maybe, just maybe, he will have a happy new year if she remains by his side.


	3. Chapter 3

Mikasa feels the candies before she sees them, hard little lumps that go skittering across the knotted wooden floorbeams in the room she shares with Sasha.

"This is ridiculous," she grumbles, shaking her scarf out as she unfurls it, sending more candies falling to the ground.

Sasha enters the room then, crushes an orange heart beneath her boot before she realizes what's on the floor. "Is that candy?" she asks, standing on one leg and inspecting the lump of powder on the sole of her shoe.

"Yeah, it was in my scarf." Mikasa crouches on the floor, picking up the candy hearts and holding them in one cupped hand.

"Like that note from last month?" Sasha chirps, clasping her hands together. "Someone _liiiiiiiikes_ you."

"Someone likes sticking things in my scarf, that's all," Mikasa mutters. She gets up and dumps the candy on the small desk next to their bunk, then wipes her sticky hand on her pants before sitting on her bed. "Do you want some of these?"

Sasha walks over to the desk, pulls out the rickety wooden chair pushed up against it, and plops down. The chair creaks in protest. "Mikasa, they were on the floor. Gross."

"Yeah, but it's _candy_. Who knows when we'll see this next?"

"Point taken. What color do you want? There's pink, white, blue, purple, orange, and green."

"Give me a pink one." Sasha hands her the candy; Mikasa peers at it, squinting, as she holds it between two fingers. On the side facing Sasha are words stamped in faint red ink. "I LOVE U," she reads.

"What?" Sasha asks, loudly crunching on a white heart.

"Candy says it," Mikasa replies. She gets up and inspects the sweets on the desk, flipping over the pieces whose text she can't see. "'ONLY YOU,'" she reads when all of the messages are revealed. "'CUTIE.' 'I LOVE YOU.' 'BE MINE.' 'TOO SWEET.' 'KISS ME.'"

"This one says 'I'M YOURS.' I'm noticing a theme here."

Mikasa shrugs, then puts a pink "BE MINE" in her mouth. The candy is sweet, sweeter than she likes, but when she bites down on it her mouth is flooded with the thick, bland taste of chalk. "Ugh!" she grunts, spitting the candy into her palm in chunks and a torrent of thick pink drool. "That's disgusting!"

"Really? I love them," Sasha says, tossing a purple "SWEETHEART" in the air and catching it in her mouth.

"Then take them. Happy Valentine's Day." Mikasa gets up and walks across the room to drop the half-chewed candy in the waste basket, then wipes her hand on the towel that hangs from a hook on their door. "Actually, wait. Save me one."

"Thanks. So do you know who your secret admirer is? Is it Jean?"

"I don't know," Mikasa says, but her lips slowly curl into a smile.

Sasha grins. "You're a terrible liar, Mikasa. It _is_ Jean!"

"No, no," she replies. "It's someone else."

* * *

><p>Levi's breath comes in thick puffs of water vapor as he trudges across the snowy camp. He understands why the latrines are so far from the barracks — in summer, the cloying effluvia of fermented human waste makes the blood-shit reek of Titans and corpses seem almost pleasant in comparison — but in winter, when the only thing he can smell is the brutal chill in the air, it seems like an incredibly stupid justification. He has had to double back across camp to go from his office to the latrines back to the officers' barracks, and in that time his fingers and the tip of his nose have turned an angry, stinging red.<p>

Before he appreciates the warmth of his small room, he is alarmed at the fact that someone has been in there, even if it is only to light a fire. And, he finds as he surveys the room, a small purple heart candy has been left on his nightstand.

Levi swallows when he realizes Mikasa has given his gift back to him, then freezes when he reads the faded red text printed on the candy: "KISS ME." He nearly pisses his pants (but will never admit that fact to anyone) when, a few seconds later, there is a loud knock on the door. He strides across the room, muttering to himself that he's going to castrate Erwin if he wants a fifth opinion on his stupid quarterly budget proposal, and throws open the door.

On the other side is Mikasa Ackerman, her scarf wrapped around her face until only her dark eyes peek out, her long black lashes dotted with snowflakes. She jumps at the suddenness of his actions, which makes him jump as well. They both look away from each other, bearing twin blushes at the thought of being caught off guard.

"It's really cold out," she says by way of a greeting, but over the past five years Levi has gotten to know the language of her scarf: draped low and loose, barely wearing it at all when she feels sick or frustrated, wrapped tightly around her neck like a noose when she feels overwhelmed, covering her face when she is feeling shy, when she is feeling vulnerable.

He smiles then, realizing that her heart must be beating just as hard as his is. "Come in," he says, ushering her into the room. "There's a fire going."

"I know," she replies, revealing a lazy little smile as she unwraps her scarf from her face and sets it aside. As he watches her bare her pale throat to him inch by inch, Levi's mouth goes dry and he tries not to gasp: aside from laundry days, he has never seen her without that scarf. "My neck is sweating," she explains, as though she can read his mind. Her unspoken words: _Don't read into this. Please, please don't read into this if I'm wrong about you._

He mumbles something in response, but neither of them can tell what it is. "So what can I help you with?" he asks after the silence between them starts to stretch to an uncomfortable limit.

"You know why I'm here," Mikasa replies shortly.

Levi cocks one eyebrow. "Do I now?" He wants to sound as though he is teasing her, but his voice is hard, the same voice he uses to cow insubordinate soldiers and civilians who think they can challenge him. It is too harsh to use on a young woman confronting her reticent secret admirer, but he has tried to be soft, to be sweet, and this is the best he can do.

"Thank you for the candy, Captain," she says, her voice low and even. She looks him in the eye like a challenge, her brow furrowed and eyes narrowed — not unlike the day she watched him beat her brother, he thinks. Her reaction makes him smile, which he does not even try to hide. He likes her like this — he always has.

He wants to play coy, to make her think she is mistaken, but like the blades she wields so expertly she is unyielding before him — and sharp, so sharp. It would be an insult to string her along any further; she must be smarting at the thought of him placing those little candies between the layers of her muffler. Although, he thinks, if she did not want a scarf full of sweets, she should be more diligent about not dozing off while she completes her paperwork.

His rationalizing occurs during a split second and so there is no lull in the conversation before he spits out a terse, "You're welcome."

"They taste like shit," Mikasa tells him. Levi frowns, a deep line appearing between his dark brows. "But it was sweet. I liked it."

"Mm," Levi grunts. He looks away from her for a moment, wondering what she intends to do now.

"I did have one question, though," she asks, slowly walking over to the nightstand, then to him. "Did you mean this?"

"Mean what?"

She holds the purple candy heart between two fingers, the red "KISS ME" standing out like a flaming beacon against the lavender-colored sugar. (Funny, too, how he considered not including this candy in his sweet missive to her, since hours earlier the text seemed too faint though still on the right side of legible, but now he thinks he could see those six red letters if Mikasa was standing on the moon.)

"Do you want me to kiss you, Levi?" she asks, and her voice sounds a lot huskier than it usually does.

So does his, he realizes, when he breathes his answer: "Yes. Very much."

He has thought about their first kiss before, imagined that his hesitance, his nigh-undetectable overtures would frustrate her to aggression. He has thought about her hands on his chest, pushing him up against walls, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket and pulling him behind buildings to crush her lips against his. So when she leans down to kiss him and her lips softly press to his, he finds himself smiling, his mouth stretched to its limit, unable to resist the feeling of elation that runs rampant through his body, electrifying his nerves, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He gives a silent thanks for the existence of his ribcage; he feels as though his fluttering heart would simply burst forth from his body without the protection of his bones, propelled by fear and adrenaline and a swelling in his chest he cannot name but assumes must be happiness. He wants to scream for joy, to run around camp whooping his glee for all to hear, but that would mean tearing himself away from the warmth of her mouth. At this moment he would rather lose a leg than the pressure of her lips against his.

She feels it too, the way his mouth feels firm beneath hers, the slick-solid barrier of his exposed teeth, and this is all the impetus she needs for her own mouth to curl up, expressing a mere fraction of the fireworks that explode inside of her when Levi wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. Mikasa responds in turn, resting one arm over his shoulder, splaying her hand across his muscular back to keep him anchored to her. Her other hand cups itself around his face, her thumb rubbing against the fine stubble at his jawline, her fingers teasing the closely shorn hair at the nape of his neck. He moans against her mouth and a small bubble of laughter comes out, a giggle of pure mirth and more than a little bit of disbelief, even now, even as he flicks his tongue against hers, then presses his teeth into the fullness of her lower lip.

Her laugh is followed not ten seconds later by the sound of a throat clearing loudly, deafening compared to the crackle of the fire and the soft, wet movements of their lips.

"I was going to ask you to review the budget once more, but it seems as though you've found other ways to occupy your time," Erwin says dispassionately. He looks down at them, his dark brows shadowing his eyes, creating an almost ghoulish look. By contrast, Hanji stands behind him and off to the side, maniacally grinning at the sight of the Captain and his right hand embracing, their foreheads still touching as they look up at Erwin with gazes that betray nothing but the narcotic haze of their kiss.

They disengage under the stern glare of the Commander, a thin string of saliva joining their lips together for a moment before it breaks, ending the dizzying spiral of their first kiss. As they untangle their limbs Levi catches one of her hands in his and squeezes it twice, firmly, as if to say, _Don't leave. Please._

Before she moves away from him and steps into the stiff military salute she has perfected over the last eight years, she squeezes his hand back. _I won't._


End file.
